HARKEN, Grace Marie 1995-2015

HARKEN

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 8/1/2015 at 08:41:52

#1:

Obituary for Grace Marie Harken

Our beautiful beloved daughter, Grace Marie Harken went into the arms of Jesus on July 29, 2015. She was born May 18, 1995 in our home in Saratoga, Iowa, and was the sister to Hannah, Jennah, Caleb, Luke, Sarah and Isaac, and daughter of Darrel and Christine.

Grace was home-schooled thru her Junior year of high school and took classes at Riceville and additional college courses her Senior year. While in school she was a loud tuba player, participated in choir, track and speech and basketball player. She loved the two youth groups she was in and made a tasty bacon-cheeseburger pizza at Andy’s Mini-Mart.

After graduating from Homestead Christian Academy in 2013 Grace worked for TOPS Business Forms and Murphy/Smith and Co. in Osage, Iowa while studying with College-Plus. Grace attended Prairie Bible College in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada, and was enrolled in their Sports Ministry and Management program. While there her love for the game of basketball was restored and she played for and won championship gold with her team, the Prairie Pilots. Grace traveled to Central and South America on mission trips to share her love of Christ.

Grace loved life and packed a life-time of living and giving in her twenty years. On Valentine’s Day 1999 Grace asked Jesus into her heart because she realized her need for Him in her sin. Grace loved smiling, her brothers, her sisters, her dad and mom, her grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, singing, playing basketball to win, fitness, learning, being mentally stretched, traveling, biking, adventure, lifting weights, shooting hoops, milking Betty the cow, early mornings, tickling wars, friends, long talks, music, poetry, fast walks, eating cookie dough, studying, reading her bible, mission trips, prayer, bright colors, fun, watching movies, singing with her sisters and pizza. Grace lived a life of love and loved to life she lived.

Survivors include her parents Darrel and Christine Harken of Riceville, her siblings Hannah of Saratoga, Jennah and her fiancé Ridge Anderson of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Caleb, Luke, Sarah and Isaac all of Riceville, her paternal grandparents Eugene and Ramona Harken of Aplington, Iowa, her maternal grandmother, Marie Beran of Saratoga and many cousins.

She was preceded in death by her maternal grandfather, James L. Beran, and one cousin Richard Klamfoth.

Source: Lindstrom Funeral Home website, 1 AUG 2015
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#2:

RICEVILLE, IOWA (KTTC) --

An Iowa community is mourning the loss of a young, passionate woman who was the victim of a fatal car accident on July 29.

The funeral for Grace Harken, 2013's Miss Mitchell County, was held Monday. We're told the line to visit family at the wake Sunday was three hours long, with more than 1,000 people coming through to pay their respects. It's clear in her 20 years, Grace impacted the lives of everyone she touched. So many, in fact, they could fill a high school gymnasium.

The stands at Riceville High School were packed to honor Grace on Monday morning. She was killed July 29 when she was hit by a car while riding her bike on Highway 218 near Riceville.

"All these people have been there because they've met Grace or her family at one time or another, and she's made that much of an impact to fill a gymnasium,” said Grace's cousin, Katie Karels.

As friends and family shared their memories, it became clear there was no more fitting a name than 'Grace.'

"The way she interacted with people, she was always on fire, she was ready to go somewhere and do something. And you don't find that in everyone,” Karels said.

Friends say the former Miss Mitchell County logged more than a thousand hours in this gym as a dedicated member of the Wildcat basketball team,despite an injury.

"She never missed a practice, she never missed a team even though she couldn't play. She was a true team player,” said Grace's uncle, Steve Karels.

Grace helped out with two youth groups, and dedicated her life to her faith, as a student at Prairie Bible College in Alberta, Canada.

A church friend, also her homeschool choir teacher, Leah Hunter, described her as a woman “on fire for the Lord.”

"She wanted everyone around her to know the Lord as well, so she was outgoing in that way. She wanted everybody to know who He was and so she showed that through her life,” Hunter said.

Grace took part in mission trips around the world, with a goal to make a difference. The hardest part of losing her, for some, is the "will not”s.

"I think part of our mourning is the people we know she won't be able to minister to and the people she won't be able to touch, because I think the people she knew and the people she got to know were never the same after they knew Grace,” Hunter said.

It's because of her legacy, there were no 'visitors' in this gymnasium as they sent their amazing Grace finally Home.

Source: www.KTTC.com website
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#3:

RICEVILLE, Ia. — Grace Harken’s father was the first to reach her side as she lay bloodied and broken in a ditch next to her bicycle along Highway 218.

The flaxen-haired former Mitchell County Fair queen was riding home from work when she was struck by a driver who was allegedly texting. Her father and sister, who were minutes behind in a family car, were the first to spot the crash.

"I went running up there and slid in the gravel right next to her, yelling her name,” Darrel Harken said Tuesday from his living room on his family's Riceville farm. “Her face was soaked in blood, and she was lying on her side.”

Minutes later, Grace Harken died. But the distracted driver who hit her likely will receive a suspended license and a $1,350 fine — with no time in jail.

Drivers in Iowa who run into bicyclists and kill them rarely serve time behind bars, a Des Moines Register review of five years of crash data found.
Darrel and Christine Harken of Riceville hold a photoBuy Photo

Darrel and Christine Harken of Riceville hold a photo of their daughter, Grace, who was killed when her bicycle was struck by a driver who was texting on a road near Osage last July.

Since 2011 in Iowa, 21 bicyclists have died in collisions with cars. Thirteen of those drivers were subsequently charged. Three cases are pending, but in the other 11, the most common punishment was a $250 fine.

None of the drivers was given prison time, including one who left the scene and another who was drunk and fled.

The lack of harsher punishment illustrates weaknesses in Iowa’s laws that bicycling advocates say too often make them feel like targets on the state’s streets and roads. And legislators remain reluctant to make changes — even a small effort to encourage cars to pass safely around bicycles failed in the state Legislature this year.

Reckless driving is one of the toughest things to prove under Iowa law, said Pete Grady, an attorney at the Iowa attorney general’s office. But it’s one of the few ways prosecutors can secure a vehicular homicide indictment that might result in more serious punishment.

“This is something that has been frustrating for me,” Grady said. “To have to explain this to folks is to say our law is too difficult to really permit the kind of charging that should occur.”

Aaron Murphy, assistant Mitchell County Attorney, assumed that texting while driving would qualify as reckless driving in the Harken case.

But after he researched Iowa's laws, he found out he was wrong. Unless drivers are drunk, high, drag racing or fleeing from police, their behavior isn't legally considered reckless.

“Even if I wanted to charge her with a reckless crime, I don’t think, under facts that exist, I could prove it,” Murphy said.

During this year's session of the Iowa Legislature, biking advocates tried to enhance the state's bicycle safety laws by pushing a bill that would have required drivers to fully change lanes when they pass cyclists.

The bill would have enhanced the penalty for killing a cyclist to $1,000. But it died in the Republican-controlled House.
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Photos: Families of bike accident victims seek better legislation
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A memorial to Wade Franck, a well-known Des Moines cyclist, sits near the spot Franck was hit by a drunk driver on Grand Avenue in Des Moines. Franck died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident two days later. Bryon Houlgrave/The Register
Frustrated by laws' limitations

Murphy had never prosecuted a bicycle fatality in his 19 years in Mitchell County.

It took him months, combing through Iowa Code, before settling on the charges — and even then, he wasn't pleased with his options.

He took an extra step and double-checked his decision with the Iowa attorney general’s office.

“I was surprised at the limited number of charges that could be filed,” Murphy said. “It seems to me like there ought to be something that’s more serious than that.”

In the end, Murphy charged the driver, 23-year-old Courtney Lynn Johnson, with texting while driving, a misdemeanor that, with an enhanced penalty for causing death, carries a $1,000 fine and a 180-day suspension of her driver’s license. Murphy also charged her with riding too close to a bicycle, a $250 fine, and failure to maintain control, a $100 fine.

Her case is pending.

Source: Des Moines Register - April 23, 2016

Mitchell Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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